The websites "Snopes" claims to be a "fact-checking website" and just recently for "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" reposted an article supposedly debunking "Holocaust denial." Snopes is a very popular website, one of the top 1,000 most visited in the USA and is integrated into Facebook to "fact check" certain stories automatically.

What motivates some people to reject the overwhelming historical evidence and claim the Holocaust never occurred?

David Emery

Published 14 April 2017

The Holocaust happened.

It is a fact that some six million European Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945 in a state-sponsored program of genocide.

Oh, it's a fact? Let's see what kind of evidence is provided.

The National Socialists came to power in part by convincing Germans that many of the country’s problems were caused by its Jewish minority, whom they labeled an “inferior race” and depicted as depraved and animal-like in anti-Semitic propaganda. They named their plan for exterminating the Jews the “Final Solution.” Their implementation of a plan to exterminate the Jews — the “Final Solution,” they called it — has been well documented, starting with the 3,000 tons of confiscated Third Reich paperwork presented in evidence at the Nuremberg trials immediately after the war.

Yet, despite universal agreement among historians about all of the above (“No serious historian questions that the Holocaust took place,” the American Historical Association affirmed in a 1991 statement)

How can we know how many "serious historians" actually question the Holocaust if they live in a country where it is a crime to do so publicly? And when it is not a crime, they will be called "anti-Semitic" and harassed by hate groups like the ADL and SPLC. And what differentiates between a serious historian and one that is not serious? Sounds like the No True Scotsman fallacy to me, plus claims of telepathic ability.

there exists a tiny but vocal group of naysayers — conspiracy theorists, actually, given that they claim that “Jewish-controlled” academic and media institutions “invented” the Holocaust — whose mission it is to sow doubt that the genocide of European Jews ever happened. They are known (to everyone but themselves) as Holocaust deniers.

The Allied governments invented [or reiterated] many false claims at the various post-war tribunals that have been exposed as such since the 1940s. And the "Holocaust" story itself is the conspiracy theory. And yes, the idea is to make people question the alleged genocide, why not? If the evidence is so overwhelming, there shouldn't be any problems with people questioning it.

Here are some basic tenets of Holocaust denialism (via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum):

Holocaust denial” describes attempts to negate the established facts of the Nazi genocide of European Jewry. Common denial assertions are: that the murder of six million Jews during World War II never occurred; that the Nazis had no official policy or intention to exterminate the Jews; and that the poison gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp never existed.

A newer trend is the distortion of the facts of the Holocaust. Common distortions include, for example, assertions that: the figure of six million Jewish deaths is an exaggeration; deaths in the concentration camps were the results of disease or starvation but not policy; and that the diary of Anne Frank is a forgery.

Besides the Anne Frank diary being a forgery, which doesn't really matter because Anne Frank's story contradicts the "Holocaust" narrative, those points are more or less correct. There were of course some executions in some of the camps for a variety of reasons and the camp death records confirm this. Despite these execution records there is not a single case of a a Jew being killed in a homicidal gas chamber.

The deniers aren’t known for their subtlety. “I don’t see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz,” said author, anti-Semite, and Holocaust denier David Irving in 1991. He continued:

It’s baloney, it’s a legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave labor camp and large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died elsewhere in the War, why believe the rest of the baloney?

I say quite tastelessly, in fact, that more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz.

At a 2006 conference of Holocaust deniers in Iran hosted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s former interior minister said, without irony, “All the studies and research carried out so far have proven that there is no reason to believe that the Holocaust ever occurred and that it is only a tale.”

Others at the conference admitted the killings took place, but claimed the numbers were inflated:

Frederick Toben, an Australian who in 1999 served jail time in Germany for his Holocaust views, told the conference in no uncertain terms that the number of Jews killed in Nazi death camps — an estimated 6 million — is a myth.

”The number of victims at the Auschwitz concentration camp could be about 2,007,” Toben said. ”The railroad to the camp did not have enough capacity to transfer large numbers of Jews.”

Well they didn't "admit the killings took place" and stating that "The Holocaust didn't occur" isn't claiming that nobody was killed or that nobody died. This author is just using the term "Holocaust" in different ways in different sentences.

Anyway, that quote from Toben appears to be inaccurate, I made a thread about it:Did Frederick Toben claim "The number of victims at the Auschwitz concentration camp could be about 2,007"?viewtopic.php?t=12645

It just doesn't make any sense. Has anyone ever asked Toben to verify that he said that? Nope. We have over 58 thousand documented Jewish deaths from typhus alone at Auschwitz and revisionists do not dispute these figures. What they do dispute is the absurd and baseless claim of "over 1 million" Jewish deaths. The same records also document 114 executions of Jews - in comparison to 1,465 executions of Poles. So "Holocaust denial" never was the claim that there was nobody killed by Germany during World War II, like this Snopes article tries to argue. That's total nonsense. The camps simply were not set up or used for that purpose.

Don’t mistake these for sincere historical quibbles. They are direct misstatements of the evidentiary record — a record whose existence, again, we owe in large part to the Nazis themselves.

All of these articles listed have been completely debunked by revisionists.

The documents listed at the bottom of the page are mostly just Pressac's fake "Criminal traces" also dealt with here: viewtopic.php?p=94037#p94037

“Extermination, we’re doing it”

Both propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and SS chief Heinrich Himmler, for example, admitted there was an official plan to exterminate the Jewish population. “The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them,” Goebbels wrote in his diary in 1942. “Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 percent can be used for forced labor.”

Yet the term "liquidate" is not synonymous with murder, and was not always used in that sense. This specific entry is handled here:

The preceding sentence shows that Goebbels is actually referring to:"Starting with Lublin, the Jews are now being deported from the General Government to the East. A rather barbaric method which needs not to be described further is applied, and not much is left over of the Jews. Overall one can ascertain that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be deployed for labor deployment.

And Goebbels' personal opinion on what "must be" done is not necessarily the same as what was actually done.There are many additional Goebbels diary entries showing that he interpreted "Final Solution" as something other than extermination: viewtopic.php?p=95512#p95512When Jews were being executed, such as in reprisals for partisan actions in the east, he expressed his support. So if "Final Solution" meant extermination of Jews, Goebbels would have made that clear and probably also expressed his support of such measures.

Chillingly, Himmler said this in a 1943 speech in Posen, Poland:

I refer now to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of those things that is easily said: “the Jewish people are being exterminated,” says every Party member, “quite true, it’s part of our plans, the elimination of the Jews, extermination, we’re doing it.”

At the Nuremberg trial, Alfred Rosenberg stated:"I do not need a foreign dictionary in order to explain the various meanings "Ausrottung" may have in the German language. One can exterminate an idea, an economic system a social order, and as a final consequence, also a group of human beings, certainly. Those are the many possibilities which are contained in that word. For that I do not need an English-German dictionary... It means "to overcome" on one side and then it is to be used not with respect to individuals but rather to juridical entities, to certain historical traditions. On the other side this word has been used with respect to the German people and we have also not believed that in consequence thereof 60 millions of Germans would be shot."

No one left behind a ledger sheet tallying the precise number of Jews “exterminated” but that doesn’t mean the figure can’t be accurately estimated based on existing evidence such as census reports and other government records that survived Nazi efforts to destroy them at the end of the war:

Some Holocaust deniers are self-styled “historical revisionists” — meaning they present themselves as earnest re-interpreters of real historical data whose goal is simply to reveal the whole truth — but it’s a misnomer. Scratch the surface of your typical Holocaust denier and you will find an anti-Semite. The notion, widespread among deniers, that Jews “invented” or “exaggerated” the Holocaust to further their own interests hearkens back to a centuries-old conspiracy theory positing a secret “cabal” of wealthy Jewish bankers seeking absolute world domination.

But have they ever considered that it was actually the Allied governments which are responsible for this? Atrocity propaganda is nothing new, it has been going on for centuries if not millennia. I have mostly seen the charge that the Allies orchestrated this fraudulent narrative to justify their war of aggression as well as to cover up their own crimes. Revisionist C.W. Porter even has a book entitled Made in Russia: The Holocaust (PDF)

“The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder,” former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke has said (while dismissing the claim that the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews as a “myth”).

Simon Wiesenthal himself claimed:“The creation of Israel was the only possible and the only correct reaction to Auschwitz."(Wiesenthal, Simon, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 224)

Israeli historian Tom Segev stated:The demonization of Nazism and its mythologizing, in general, were also necessary since the Holocaust served as the main justification for the creation and existence of the State of Israel." (Segev, Tom, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, 1993 p. 480)

In 2013, England’s most infamous Holocaust denier, David Irving (quoted above saying more people died in Ted Kennedy’s car than at Auschwitz), was asked if it weren’t true that Jews “run the world”:

Irving, who strongly denies being anti-semitic, replies: “Well sometimes people stand up and fight back.”

He says Jews in America control all media, banks and that “they dare not appoint any leading person in the White House to ministerial positions involving money without him being a Jew. Look where that got them in Germany in 1933. And they will not learn the lesson, they all think it won’t happen again.

“Then they ask why they are so hated.”…Irving says he hears people say Jews are hated because they crucified Jesus Christ. “I say if you walk into a pub in Wapping and ask people why they don’t like the Jews they don’t mention Jesus. They mention other reasons. They’re worried about their mortgages and the banks … that’s the reason why the Jews get hated.”

It’s telling that Irving denies hating Jews while repeatedly observing that “Jews are hated,” then blames them for it.

Famous "Holocaust survivor" Elie Wiesel said that:"Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -- healthy, virile hate -- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead."

Is that also for no reason? Pointing out that something is not unprovoked is not the same as calling it justified or deserved.

The rise of “soft denialism”

There is a relatively new form of Holocaust denialism — dubbed “soft denialism” because its adherents don’t deny the Holocaust outright but attempt to trivialize it instead — whose rise seems to have followed the same curve as that of right-wing nationalist movements worldwide in recent years.

The most prevalent form of soft denialism revolves around the claim that the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany is given preferential treatment over the persecution of other minority groups by the same regime. But this is a moral deflection. It’s a fact that the Reich persecuted and killed millions of others in the name of “Aryan superiority” — Roma (“gypsies”), Serbs, Poles, individuals with disabilities, individuals perceived as “homosexual,” socialists, communists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, to name only some of the targeted minorities — but this is no justification for eliding Hitler’s decades-long vendetta against the Jewish people in particular, a vendetta which very nearly ended in their complete eradication.

So he picked on Jews and everyone else for no reason, but had a special vendetta against Jews also for no reason?

Jehovah’s Witnesses refused conscription and were imprisoned in other countries (such as the USA) for this very reason. There was no extermination. Germany was at war with the USSR, so "communists" were seen [and rightfully so] as a subversive element. None of this was motivated by "Aryan supremacy" at all.Did the US government put US citizens of Japanese descent in camps because of "White supremacy"? 90% of Americans would have rather lost WWII than give Blacks equality!

In January 2017, President Trump was roundly criticized for issuing a statement “in the name of the perished” on Holocaust Remembrance Day, held on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, that never once mentioned the Jewish victims of that tragedy:

The rest of the article is just devoted to whining about Trump, somehow. Literally an entire third is devoted to whining about Trump not mentioning Jews, and then quoting some "White supremacist" who congratulated him for it on Twitter.

1. Call "Holocaust denial" anti-Semitic2. Claim the "Holocaust" is a proven fact. Over and over again3. Post "evidence" for the "Holocaust" that has already been debunked/addressed by revisionists4. Cherry pick a few quotes from "deniers" to make them seem like bad people who hate Jews for no reason5. Do not post any actual revisionist arguments, and distort them at every opportunity

People only deny the "Holocaust" because they hate Jews. And they hate Jews because they don't believe the "Holocaust." And that's why you need to believe in the "Holocaust" - because otherwise you hate Jews, which is evil!

"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principal is contempt prior to investigation." -- Herbert Spencer

If I'm not mistaken, Snopes is an establishment friendly 'fact checking' website designed for dim-wits with a limited attention span, in some ways similar to Politifact or PropOrNot.No need to to research something & think critically (far too labour intensive) when you can use Snopes as a proxy to settle your internet arguments or put your mind at rest regarding contentious topics.

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled

But it's interesting that an article meant to discuss the concept of holocaust denial starts with this...

The Holocaust happened.

It is a fact that some six million European Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945 in a state-sponsored program of genocide.

And also they don't have a comments section.

Also interesting is their position that 'historical evidence' proves that the holocaust happened but they never discuss scientific evidence, because that would embarrass them.

Snopes is worth knowing about but then I wouldn't waste my time with it or them.

Indeed, no fact checking of Holocaust core claims there. E.g. they could have picked an alleged homicidal gas chamber and presented the scientifically drawn up forensic report that proves beyond reasonable doubt that gas was used there to kill Jews. But wait, does that mean there is no such thing? Apparently Snopes sees no Need for something like that.

Do they usually have a comment section? I think we know why they don't have a comment section in this case.

The rest is a give away as well.

From what I read Snopes isn't the beacon of unbiased fact checking it claims to be. From the unequal standards they apply, they are a far left-leaning site snooping into arbitration of facts and the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of urban legends. Well, definitely not reliable concerning the Holocaust issue.

Lamprecht wrote: Their implementation of a plan to exterminate the Jews — the “Final Solution,” they called it — has been well documented, starting with the 3,000 tons of confiscated Third Reich paperwork presented in evidence at the Nuremberg trials immediately after the war.

That event is so well documented that:

1. Historians are in doubt about how it was implemented as the controversy intentionalism vs functionalism subsists nowadays.Even Wikipedia can't hide that debate

Functionalism versus intentionalismis a historiographical debate about the origins of the Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy. The debate on the origins of the Holocaust centres on essentially two questions:

- Was there a master plan on the part of Adolf Hitler to launch the Holocaust? Intentionalists argue there was such a plan, while functionalists argue there was not.- Did the initiative for the Holocaust come from above with orders from Adolf Hitler or from below within the ranks of the German bureaucracy?

Although neither side disputes the reality of the Holocaust, nor is there serious dispute over the premise that Hitler (as Führer) was personally responsible for encouraging the anti-Semitism that allowed the Holocaust to take place, intentionalists argue the initiative came from above, while functionalists contend it came from lower ranks within the bureaucracy.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functiona ... ntionalism

If it exists such a debate, that means:

- a. Historians are not sure if it was a master plan for the "final solution" (order from Hitler or not?)- b. Historians are not sure of how all that stuff was actually implemented ( "an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus - mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy." like said the functionalist Hilberg? .

2. Historians are not sure about the date the decision to the "Final solution" was taken.There is no unanimity among historians about that mysterious "starting date".

Can you imagine that such an enterprise for allegedly exterminating 6 million people, which could be compared to the D-Day in terms of amplitude of logistic and amount of executors involved, would remains with such uncertainties about how it was supposedly implemented despite the study of "3,000 tons of confiscated Third Reich paperwork"?

Can you imagine a D-Day which could have left "3,000 tons of confiscated English paperwork" and about of which historians would still remain with so much uncertainties about how it was performed?

These facts always put some embarrassment among exterminationists who are so sure that the things are definitely well established.

Is that what all the documents say? Are there absolutely no more documents that mention it? My understanding is that The Final Solution was at first to force the jews to leave Germany through persecution and (reluctantly) allow some to flee through the Haavara Agreement, which funded rearmament with hard currency. (pre war)

This was then replaced by the Final Final Solution, which was expulsion from Germany and ghettoisation in the occupied territories, especially Poland. When other countries were invaded, this was expanded to concentration camps and ghettos in them, and then transport from western states to Poland.

Simultaneously they were shooting jews on the eastern front, which is pretty final, and a solution, but apparently not The Final Solution (or the Final Final one).

However at some point the Final Final Solution was replaced by (or ran parallel with) The Final Final Final Solution, sending them Madagascar. But that was basically a pipe dream.

So then the Final Final Final Final Solution was proposed, which was to send them to the East. Although we have no evidence of any arrangements made to do this, or of them ever arriving there.

and then the Final final (honest really this one is the final) final final solution comes along - wait until after the war, and send them to Africa, to a warm lazy climate where they would not get strong.

However this was rather overcome by events - the massive resource drain that guarding the ghettos and camps caused, the massive resource drain in feeding millions of useless eaters, who were enemies of the state and potential saboteurs and generally vermin. And verminous. Diseased themselves, and they are themselves a bacillus to be eradicated by the most extreme measures. A solution was needed. Preferably one that was actually final.

So, according to many historians, a Finally, really Final, Final, Final, FINAL solution was started. Secretly, of course, so you don't tell the labour minister as it is none of his business (or maybe you do, but it is a reichsecret so he does not tell his underlings and fobs them off with an excuse when he tells them to stop working on what they think is THE final solution, because it is no longer the solution being pursued...) and for which there are many testimonials and other evidence to suggest that it might just have happened.

So, even though Lamprecht recognizes that "the final solution" changed several times according to the exigencies of war, one wonders why that final final final final final change to the plan is somehow impossible? Or that the earlier documents (with ever changing versions of different final solutions) are the last word? Why does a document from 1942 by someone not in the inner circle of the SS, and not part of Aktion Reinhardt, trump all the rest of the evidence? That seems to me to be a weak theory.

NFrNJ wrote:Is that what all the documents say? Are there absolutely no more documents that mention it?

Please make a thread/threads on the documents you're thinking of, NFrNJ. I would very much enjoy reading it

My understanding is that The Final Solution was at first to force the jews to leave Germany through persecution and (reluctantly) allow some to flee through the Haavara Agreement, which funded rearmament with hard currency. (pre war)

Why would they be reluctant about Jews leaving? You're not making any sense. And your understanding is incorrect, that was not the "Final Solution" policy. The "Jewish question" was something discussed for a long time, before Hitler ever came to power, and questions of this sort have solutions. But there was no Third Reich "Final Solution" policy with that specific designation at that point in time.

This was then replaced by the Final Final Solution, which was expulsion from Germany and ghettoisation in the occupied territories, especially Poland. When other countries were invaded, this was expanded to concentration camps and ghettos in them, and then transport from western states to Poland.

No, the "Final Solution" since its inception was always removing Jews from German living spaces, but the target of where the Jews would be ultimately resettled to changed as the conditions did.

Simultaneously they were shooting jews on the eastern front, which is pretty final, and a solution, but apparently not The Final Solution (or the Final Final one).

It would be very confusing if they didn't shoot Jews during World War II. I wouldn't be able to make sense of it. Are we supposed to believe that Jews just sat around doing nothing, waiting for Germans to come kill them? You think they didn't fight back at all?And if Jewish terrorists - or you can call them "freedom fighters" - killed some Germans in a guerilla warfare attack, how were they to respond? They didn't know exactly who did it. Again, reprisals against civilians for partisan actions was not illegal at the time and the USSR, unlike Germany, didn't sign the 1929 Geneva Convention.

Einsatzgruppen report dated 12 September 1941:"During the first weeks [of the military campaign] considerable numbers of Jews fell under our control, whereas in the central and eastern Ukrainian districts it has been observed that in many cases 70 to 90 percent, and sometimes 100 percent, of the Jewish population has fled. This can be seen as an indirect result of the work of the Security Police [Einsatzgruppen], since the removal [Abschiebung] at no cost of hundreds of thousands of Jews -- most of them reportedly to beyond the Urals -- represents a considerable contribution to the solution of the Jewish question in Europe."

However at some point the Final Final Solution was replaced by (or ran parallel with) The Final Final Final Solution, sending them Madagascar. But that was basically a pipe dream.

You have it completely backwards here, your dates are all messed up. Sending all Jews to Madagascar wasn't even first thought up by the Germans, but the Poles before WWII. And France declared war on Germany in Sept. 1939, and was quickly defeated. The French owned Madagascar. And that is why Madagascar was considered a viable option. By early 1942, the idea of sending Jews to Madagascar was formally dropped. Not long into Operation Barbarossa (invasion of USSR) the Germans decided it would be best to resettle the Jews to these newly conquered eastern territories.

So it doesn't make sense to first mention shootings of Jews in the East (which is accepted by revisionists, although the estimates are certainly inflated) using the term "Simultaneously" and then afterwards mentioning the Madagascar plan. The "Final Solution" policy was the same idea entire time, it was just difficult to find a specific location.

So then the Final Final Final Final Solution was proposed, which was to send them to the East. Although we have no evidence of any arrangements made to do this, or of them ever arriving there.

Again, it was the same "Final Solution" but the conditions changed, as stated. The few documents show quite obviously arrangements were made for it. What "evidence" do you think should exist, but does not? Please make a thread on this and explain why it should exist.

Your claim is that they were exterminated, dumped into enormous pits, and these enormous quantities of evidence remains in exact locations to this day. Please make a new thread showing us these alleged pits. If they are not in the pits they clearly went somewhere else.

and then the Final final (honest really this one is the final) final final solution comes along - wait until after the war, and send them to Africa, to a warm lazy climate where they would not get strong.

"wait until after the war" means exactly that. One can only make suggestions during a war about what should be done after, there was nothing "Final" about the policy except: "They can't be here"

However this was rather overcome by events - the massive resource drain that guarding the ghettos and camps caused, the massive resource drain in feeding millions of useless eaters, who were enemies of the state and potential saboteurs and generally vermin. And verminous. Diseased themselves, and they are themselves a bacillus to be eradicated by the most extreme measures. A solution was needed. Preferably one that was actually final.

And let me guess, millions of Jews were murdered in these "extermination camps" and the millions and millions of pounds of physical evidence magically obliterated after being covered with a layer of dirt!

Again: Please make a thread showing these documents which supposedly prove the very real "Final Solution" policy turned into an extermination plan. I would like to see what date this occurred. And I wonder why Goebbels did not cheer for this, instead stating in every instance that "Final Solution" was evacuation/resettlement? He was happy to state his opinion that evacuation/resettlement "is still too mild" - as you saw in the other thread. You'd think if there was an extermination of Jews he would explicitly state that was the policy itself and then say it was the best idea ever.

So, according to many historians, a Finally, really Final, Final, Final, FINAL solution was started.

Please post the date. Make a thread about "This is when the Final Solution became extermination" I would love it

Secretly, of course, so you don't tell the labour minister as it is none of his business (or maybe you do, but it is a reichsecret so he does not tell his underlings and fobs them off with an excuse when he tells them to stop working on what they think is THE final solution, because it is no longer the solution being pursued...) and for which there are many testimonials and other evidence to suggest that it might just have happened.

How about you show us the physical evidence that must exist if this theory was true -- in another thread of course (feel free to link it here). Or make a thread about how it is possible that hundreds of thousands of people can be murdered at one site and somehow the human remains magically disappear! It is either one or the other, and I don't believe in magic.

So, even though Lamprecht recognizes that "the final solution" changed several times according to the exigencies of war, one wonders why that final final final final final change to the plan is somehow impossible?

The "Final Solution" didn't really change though. It was always "Remove Jews from our living spaces" and eventually it was postponed. Of course the whole "it is postponed until after the war" makes no sense in your laughable theory, so either those documents were a deliberate deception intended to be found after the war to fool the victorious allies, or the alleged extermination policy you claim is real was not the "Final Solution" but something different.

And yes, it was hard to find a place to put the Jews, not just because of a war going on. It just so happened that nobody else really wanted to take in a bunch of Jews. I wonder why?Goebbels himself said as much:"It is remarkable that the states whose public opinion is in favor of the Jews all refuse to accept our Jews from us. They say they are magnificent pioneers of culture, and geniuses in economics, diplomacy, philosophy, and poetry, yet the moment we try to press one of these geniuses upon them, they clamp down their frontiers: ‘No, no! We don’t want them!’ I think it must be unique in the history of the world, people turning down geniuses."

Or that the earlier documents (with ever changing versions of different final solutions) are the last word? Why does a document from 1942 by someone not in the inner circle of the SS, and not part of Aktion Reinhardt, trump all the rest of the evidence? That seems to me to be a weak theory.

Earlier documents? Like I said, make a thread on what exact date "Final Solution" became extermination. I'd love to see your evidence for that.

And Aktion Reinhardt was quite obviously not an extermination policy either, according to the documents at least. See for example:

The report explains the purpose of the AR camps: to plunder Jewish wealth and resettle/evacuate/expel/deport them. Why would they use "code words" here? Globocnik had a leading role in AR, and Himmler was, well Himmler. The "labour minister" or "underlings" are not relevant here at all.

- 17 March 1942 Fritz Reuter memo on his conversation with Höfleviewtopic.php?t=12417#p92065Reuter explains that Jews sent unfit for work would be expelled from Poland via Belzec to the east, "cross the border and never return." Is that supposed to mean killed? Hoefle was Globocnik's deputy. Both Hoefle and Globkcnick "committed suicide" before being put on trial. Very convenient.

- 13 August 1942 Karl Wolff memo to Albert Ganzenmüllerviewtopic.php?t=10360In response to "The Ganzenmuller Letter" regarding deporting Jews to Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka – Wolff stated that he was very glad to hear about their plan "to accelerate this population transfer"

Does "population transfer" mean kill? Transfer into mass graves I guess? Show the alleged mass graves they were transferred into. It should be easy as they would still be there 70+ years later...

- The "Operation Reinhadt Secrecy Oath"viewtopic.php?t=12924The document says no photographing or talking about the camp is to be allowed for AR staff. Perhaps this explains your "lack of evidence" for resettlement.Regardless, it describes the purpose of these camps as part of an "evacuation of Jews" policy. Some dishonest people used this evidence of an extermination camp, but it is in no way incompatible with the transit camp thesis. Just more of the "code word" nonsense. I feel that I addressed your "vacation summer camp trip" canard here: viewtopic.php?p=95569#p95569

- 5 July 1943 Himmler order "transit camp Sobibor is to be converted into a concentration camp"viewtopic.php?t=4973"The transit camp Sobibór is to be converted into a concentration camp. In the concentration camp a plant for the repair of captured munitions is to be established."Did Himmler just love to confuse people in his orders?

Let me guess, you have "Eye witnesses"? Please make a thread for your "eye witnesses" - the ones that claim enormous pits exist, today, full of tens of thousands of burnt Jews, at the AR camps. Such as like this:Show us enormous trenches like this from AR please, make a thread about it.

And explain how these Germans supposedly always knew when "evacuation" meant "shove into gas chambers" in contrast to the dictionary definition. And how they knew that "deportation" sometimes meant "shoot into huge pits" but in other instances meant to put them on trains. Was it telepathy?

Remember the hierarchy of evidence. Here's a basic outline, in order of most definitive first:

1. Laws of nature – If someone contradicts the laws of nature, it did not happen. For something to have happened, it must first be possible. Simple

2. Common sense - If something makes absolutely no sense, it probably did not happen. For example, someone claims they avoided the gas chamber many times by being the 201st person in line but it only fit 200. That's just silly

3. Physical/material evidence - If someone says "Below my feet is a mass grave of 10,000 people" and then we dig and find nothing, it is not true. Even if 10 people agree with him, it just is not there

4. Documents - documents are generally more reliable than testimony, but even documents can be faked/forged: something the Soviets were notorious for. So when looking at them we must keep this in mind. Also, documents can be destroyed (both incriminating and exonerating) so relying solely on documents is problematic, but they do in general have more weight than testimony.

5. Neutral testimony - testimony of someone who has no skin in the game. A person who can not benefit or lose out no matter what they say. These people can lie, but are less likely to

6. Party testimony - a victim, a perpetrator, a prisoner, a vengeful enemy. These sorts of testimonies are the weakest forms of evidence imaginable. A victim or enemy may lie just for revenge. A perpetrator may lie just to seem innocent, and that may be denial or a "Yes it happened but I couldn’t stop it!" confession (whether you consider that a "confession" is a matter of semantics). A prisoner’s testimony is also very weak because he may just be saying whatever he thinks will get him out of jail.

We should never assume a testimony is false just because of who says it, but we should be very skeptical about testimony and make an honest effort to combine it with something more genuine, ideally physical evidence but if that is not possible then we should preferentially use documents.

I cannot wait to see your new threads with all of this evidence you speak of

"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principal is contempt prior to investigation." -- Herbert Spencer

"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principal is contempt prior to investigation." -- Herbert Spencer

Lamprecht wrote:The websites "Snopes" claims to be a "fact-checking website" and just recently for "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" reposted an article supposedly debunking "Holocaust denial." Snopes is a very popular website, one of the top 1,000 most visited in the USA and is integrated into Facebook to "fact check" certain stories automatically.

1. Call "Holocaust denial" anti-Semitic.../People only deny the "Holocaust" because they hate Jews. And they hate Jews because they don't believe the "Holocaust." And that's why you need to believe in the "Holocaust" - because otherwise you hate Jews, which is evil!

I usually answer to that A card by a question:Do you think it is antisemitic to assume that there are no holes on the roof of L1 at Krema II at BIrkenau?Don't you think that the actual question is whether there are holes or not?What do you think?That kind of angle is interesting in a debate because it leaves aside "concepts", ideology, abstracts things and sticks instead on real things that everyone can understand.Then, the matter is not discussing Holocaust and ideas anymore but real verifiable material facts. On this ground, the accuser is disarmed .No need to evoke "no holes no Holocaust" as Pr. Faurisson did, that will be after, on examining the consequences, just stick on material facts. Ask to your accuser: Do you think there are holes or not?Why should I be antisemitic if I say NO.How much is "antisemitic" to discuss about the existence of holes?

I refer now to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of those things that is easily said: “the Jewish people are being exterminated,” says every Party member, “quite true, it’s part of our plans, the elimination of the Jews, extermination, we’re doing it.”

Evacuation, extermination, elimination. Which one is it?

The word used in this pep-talk -- "Ausrottung" -- in this instance is better translated as "extirpation".

At the Nuremberg trial, Alfred Rosenberg stated:

"I do not need a foreign dictionary in order to explain the various meanings "Ausrottung" may have in the German language. One can exterminate an idea, an economic system a social order, and as a final consequence, also a group of human beings, certainly. Those are the many possibilities which are contained in that word. For that I do not need an English-German dictionary... It means "to overcome" on one side and then it is to be used not with respect to individuals but rather to juridical entities, to certain historical traditions. On the other side this word has been used with respect to the German people and we have also not believed that in consequence thereof 60 millions of Germans would be shot."

The Snopes article writer here, David Emery, probably cannot read German and is not familiar with the controversy around the term Ausrottung (verb form, ausrotten). Or he is aware of it and is maliciously pushing the same stock line. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it is correctable ignorance.

People can play this 'game' at home, by the way, in the Internet age. No need to take anyone's word for what Ausrottung means; see for yourself how it is being used "in the wild" and come to your own conclusions.

A Google News search for the term for Ausrottung today brought up several articles related to the "Wuhan Coronavirus" panic ongoing in several countries as of this writing, all dealing with how to stop the virus, or if it can be stopped, etc.; They are using "Ausrottung" for suppression of the virus, containment. Translating any of these into English with something as scary-sounding as "exterminate" is awkward at best in each case. Check these yourself. (The lesson is, Mr. Emery, that translation is hard; or, good translation is hard; that there often are no word-for-word translations but rather general signposts, which a good translator is able to interpret in context.)

Here are the top hits today for Ausrottung in a Google News search just now; no tricks:

So far smallpox is the only infectious disease over which a permanent victory has been won. But with vaccination programs and political will, other illnesses might also be [AUSROTTEN]. The coronavirus however is not one of them.

She praises the central authorities as functioning like clockwork. Specially developed tests are ready after only a few hours. Popovitch makes reference to the the wealth of historical experience of the health ministry with the [AUSROTTUNG] of many infectious diseases.

Iran's spiritual head, Ayatollah Ali Kameini, has brusquely refused an offer of help from US President Donald Trump in the Coronavirus Crisis. Iran will not take any help from the "charlatans" in the USA, said Kamaeini on Sunday in a TV address. "No one trusts you," said Kameini to the US government. "You are even capable of bringing a medicine into our country that keeps the virus alive and slows down its [AUSROTTUNG].

Let's say this is a fill-in-the-blank translation game. How would you translate Ausrottung in these contexts?

What motivates some people to reject the overwhelming historical evidence and claim the Holocaust never occurred?

David Emery

Published 14 April 2017

The Holocaust happened.

It is a fact that some six million European Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945 in a state-sponsored program of genocide.

The author's bio at Snopes leaves no doubt about his overwhelming expertise in the area:

David EmeryDavid Emery is a Portland-based writer and editor with more than two decades’ experience investigating rumors, hoaxes, and urban legends, first as a freelancer for About.com (1997-2016), and for Snopes.com since July 2016. His varied media career has also included stints as a television writer, contributing editor of a (pre-internet) satirical newspaper, and newsroom librarian.

You can also see his full Snopes article archive there. Most of them are highly frivolous, "tabloid newspaper"-type material:

Did Chelsea Clinton Say Satanism Is a Religion That Deserves Respect?An article published on a Christian website accused Clinton of attempting to "normalize" Satanism.

Did AOC Start ‘Chain Migration’ Proceedings Against Melania Trump?U.S. First Lady Melania Trump's parents, both from Slovenia, became U.S. citizens in August 2018.

Did Judge Award Sasha and Malia Obama’s ‘Biological Father’ $14 Million?Among the many clues that something is deeply amiss with this story is the fact that its author misspelled former President Barack Obama's name.

Apparently Snopes' expert on the Holocaust David Emery also uses twitter; his handle is @Debunker.